Wangjing SOHO

Wangjing SOHO
望京SOHO
Wangjing SOHO as viewed from Wangjing Road, August 2015
General information
Status	Officially opened
Location	Beijing, China
Opened	20 September 2014
Design and construction
Architect	Zaha Hadid

Wangjing SOHO (望京SOHO) is a complex of three curvilinear asymmetric skyscrapers in Wangjing, a suburb of Beijing, China between central Beijing and Beijing Capital International Airport. According to Zaha Hadid, the project's architect, it is a "welcome and farewell to Beijing". The towers contain both office and retail space. Originally the SOHO was designed as a two-tower complex but due to height concerns it was redesigned as a three-tower project featuring towers of lower maximum height. One of the more than a dozen properties developed by SOHO China, the complex officially opened on 20 September 2014.

The structure was designed by Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. According to The Telegraph the curvilinear walls of the towers evoke "dancing Chinese fans", while Der Spiegel describes the three tower complex as "resembling curved sails that appear to swim across the surface of the Earth when viewed from the air".Architecture News Daily (Arch Daily) describes it as "three curved towers whose “shimmering”, metallic skin unifies the complex as each volume appears to “dance” around each other." Pan Shiyi, Chairman of the Board of SOHO China, said in an interview that the design of Wangjing SOHO was meant to evoke the image of Koi, a traditional Chinese symbol of wealth, luck, health and happiness.

The double-curvature panels required by the architectural design were used as models in a software programme using Visual Basic operating in a Rhino environment which could subsequently generate flat and single-curvature panels based on the analysis of the local curvature morphology of the original double-curvature panels. The software-driven panel-generation method was used to facilitate the rationalisation of manufactured sheet metal panels and to comply with higher demands in terms of cost requirements and manufacturing complexity.

According to Der Spiegel, the design of the Wangjing SOHO has been pirated, by the Meiquan 22nd Century building (美全22世纪) located in the Chinese city of Chongqing. Satoshi Ohashi of Zaha Hadid Architects mentioned that the Chongqing project may have obtained details of the SOHO project in digital form. The Meiquan complex is expected to finish ahead of the Wangjing SOHO project and this development has put pressure on Hadid to speed-up her plans to finish her SOHO project ahead of the competing towers in Chongqing. Ohashi mentioned that Zaha Hadid Architects had taken legal measures against Chongqing Meiquan Properties Ltd.